New DisplayPort 1.3 standard supports 5K monitors

Monitors
and TVs supporting 4K resolution are just arriving, but the new
DisplayPort 1.3 is already looking forward to 5K resolution.The new
DisplayPort standard, announced by Video Electronics Standards
Association, will replace the existing 1.2a standard. The new standard
will connect computers to 5K monitors that display images at a
resolution of 5120 x 2880 pixels.

DisplayPort
is widely used in businesses to connect PCs to external monitors, and
competes with HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface connector).
Seiki has already announced monitors that support DisplayPort 1.3 and the emerging HDMI 2.0 standard, which also supports 4K.

DisplayPort
1.3 is 50 percent faster than its predecessor, and has the speed to
support higher-resolution displays beyond 4K. It will also support
multiple 4K monitors at 60 frames per second, VESA said in a statement.

The
standard can transfer data at 32.4Gbps (bits per second) compared to
25.92Gbps for DisplayPort 1.2a. The total data transfer speed is broken
up over four pipes, which each have a maximum speed of 8.1Gbps.

The
DisplayPort standard is also used in the Thunderbolt and DockPort
standards and supports additional protocols for data transfers between
computers and peripherals like external storage. DisplayPort 1.3
supports both standards.

Thunderbolt—which
uses PCI-Express for data transfers—is used in Apple’s Mac computers,
and DisplayPort 1.3 support could be around the corner.